Now That I Can Dance
by Twins Of Hazzard
Summary: Have you ever wondered what Baby was thinking when she first met Johnny? Or what Penny and Johnny talked about in the cabin? Or what Johnny's inscrutably squinty thoughts are...? This fic answers those questions and more, AND it's been updated...
1. Prologue

Authors' Note: You may have heard of us before. We are the Twins of Hazzard, well-known (or maybe not-so-well-known) for our parody fics, which are mostly about Law & Order. We have a habit of making that main male character stupid and using the phrase "at which point" far too much.  
  
But this is a serious matter.  
  
You see, we are both huge "Dirty Dancing" fans, and we decided that because of the ridiculously small amount of "Dirty Dancing" fics on FF.net, we decided that we would write the "Dirty dancing" fic to end all "Dirty Dancing" fics. It illustrates how the characters felt, and what happened in the scenes not included in the movie. And we will do our best not to make Johnny dumb, but it IS sort of a habit.  
  
Anyway, enjoy.  
  
*~*~*  
  
Now That I Can Dance  
  
*~*~* Prologue  
  
Before Kellerman's  
  
Baby  
  
Before we went to Kellerman's that summer was like any other, with tennis lessons and vacations to the cape, yachting and day trips. I was going to college in the fall, and the routine was almost comforting-one last summer with my father before I left for a world I knew nothing about except that it was "real".  
  
America was still, in a sense, innocent, or at least as innocent as it ever would be in my lifetime. I spent my days out on carefully planned activities with carefully planned people. In the rare moments when nothing was arranged I sat in the cool recesses of the house reading or writing to my friends, occasionally looking up to see Lisa languishing on a lawn chair with iodine carefully splashed on her skin and sunglasses perched atop her head in a way she thought made her look like Jackie O.  
  
We left at the beginning of July. I carefully packed a suitcase in the way I had always packed, folding all my clothes and carefully laying them in my wicker suitcase, and then pulling them all out and dumping them in a heap on the floor only to carefully refold them and put them back in, with a few things taken away or added. It went like that for a week, until dad told me that I was getting to be as bad as Lisa. I dumped everything back in horror and then joined my father to tease Lisa about all her shoes, and her beige iridescent lipstick that she just had to bring.  
  
As we all piled into the car for the six-hour ride, I remember thinking how it would never be the same. It was only weeks later that I realized how true that was. 


	2. Harvard & Yale

*~*~*  
  
Now That I Can Dance  
  
*~*~*  
  
Chapter One  
  
Harvard & Yale  
  
Baby  
  
Lisa's unhappy that she didn't bring enough shoes. If you ask me two pairs are enough, but not to Lisa, she has one pair per dress. And those ten pairs take up all the floor space in our tiny closet, and still she complains. And her bad mood is filling the room like a rain cloud, making it impossible for me to read my book, "Plight of The Peasant". So I'm leaving, going to explore the main house.  
  
A house this big is just wasteful, and the amount of food they put on the plates is just too much. And what are those waiters doing? And what does Max mean by telling them to romance the daughters? But then at this kind of place that would do something like that, keep the whole family happy. Make it so you never have to leave for anything. Not food, not dates. A full self-contained bubble, safe from the outside world. No monks burning themselves in protest here, if something like the Cuban Missile Crisis happened we'd probably never know, so safe in the Kellerman's bubble. Keep the daughters safe, my father would like that. Keep us safe by fixing us up with people from Harvard and Yale, the waiters. Keep us safe from people like, well like him. Definitely not from an Ivy League school, more like a high school of four thousand where the education system fails all but the brightest. If he went to high school at all.  
  
He has a certain pulchritude about him. Pulchritude-now there's a word that sounds nothing like its meaning. It seems like it should be used to describe a sexually transmitted disease or a type of bacteria that lives in unclean water. But it doesn't mean anything like that. It is a word that could be best used to describe this boy-this man. He's probably about the same age as these waiters, but he's lived far longer.  
  
Pulchritude, at least in the way I've always thought of it, means beauty where you'd least expect to find it. A multifaceted rainbow in an oil spill, the colorful intricacy of graffiti. Black sunglasses like Lisa's and as dissimilar to Lisa's as they possibly can be, jacket slung over his shoulder, small beads of sweat gathered at his hairline. People dressed in black, I have always been taught, are harbingers of everything you don't want. Everything about him is wrong.  
  
The waiters seem to know it too. They tease him about Max's words. He doesn't seem to mind, the waiters may enjoy romancing the daughters, but he just doesn't look like he has the patience to put up with a teenage girl's ideas about love. But this man, no he wouldn't want to talk about what love means, he wouldn't care about Lisa's matching shoes. Not the way the waiters would. They would want everything to match, to them the daughters are a device to show off with, to him they don't even exist. It doesn't make him better or worse then the Ivy leaguers, just too different to compare. 


	3. The Dancing People

*~*~*  
  
Now That I Can Dance  
  
*~*~*  
  
Chapter Two  
  
The Dancing People  
  
Baby  
  
I don't know how this happened, but somehow I ended up dancing with Max's grandson. And dancing with Neil is about as fun as getting the proverbial root canal.  
  
This is really my problem. I can never say no, and now here I am dancing with a boy who enjoys talking about hotel management more than anything else. The dance floor is covered in shades of gray, mediocre dancers maneuvering clumsily through the Mamba. And the worst part?  
  
I'm one of them.  
  
Just another doctor's daughter in the Kellerman's bubble, waiting for my life to begin. Dancing with a waiter who was somehow thrust upon me, because I'm the good girl and I can't refuse. I feel a little like I'm outgrowing my role as the daddy's girl. I want to see what's outside, to see for myself whether I like it or not instead of just being told.  
  
And suddenly two beautiful creatures run to the center of the room and begin to dance. You can tell just looking at them that they don't belong at Kellerman's; everyone else retreats to give them space to dance. And dance they do.  
  
The woman is blond and limber, dancing as if this is the last dance before the world ends. She is wearing a backless pink dress, the kind of dress I would draw on a fairy princess when I was little. And the man, the man in black. He looks familiar. Of course! He's the man I saw last night at the main house. Who would have thought he could dance like that? Who would have thought he could do anything like that? (More precisely, how can I make the world a better place if I look down so much on people less educated than me, people I consider myself to be better than? How can I make the world a better place if I only help people because I pity them?)  
  
They move to the music as if that is their purpose in life. They blend together, and the rest of the world melts away for them, for me. I can't take my eyes off them-never has anything looked so pure, so true.  
  
"Who are they?" I ask dumbly, unable to look at Neil, even.  
  
"Oh, them. They're the dancing people," he says flatly, "they're here to keep the guests happy."  
  
And I cannot believe he is saying such a thing, but then, that is how I think too. They are the dancing people. We are not, we are better, we are in the Kellerman's bubble.  
  
Something happened; they part, get other partners. It is over. These beautiful people who can do something better than I can ever hope to do anything are gone. Now they are the staff, never a part of the Kellerman's bubble, but still obligated to abide by its rules. But for a brief second, they were gods. 


	4. No Guests Allowed

Now That I Can Dance  
  
*~*~*  
  
Chapter Three:  
  
No Guests Allowed  
  
Baby  
  
I need air.  
  
I shouldn't press my luck-I'm finally out of Neil's clutches, which makes him sound like a fairy tale dragon, but that's what it feels like. I'm sure someone else would love him, after all, as he said to me without as much modesty as one would hope, he does have two hotels. But not me.  
  
"STAFF QUARTERS; NO GUESTS PLEASE". Now why would Max put that sign up? Doesn't he know that people will automatically do what they're told not to do? But then, maybe it's not like that in the Kellerman's bubble.  
  
Ah. Suitcase boy.with three watermelons? What are they for?  
  
"Hi" I say, happy to see someone who isn't Neil.  
  
"How'd you get here?" He sounds anxious.  
  
"I was taking a walk, here let me help you." I take a watermelon.  
  
"No." Geez, what a grump.  
  
"What's up there?" I can hear the music coming from the larger cabin on top of the hill.  
  
"No guest allowed, house rules. I saw you dancing with the little boss man." He hums something and dances a little, and I give the watermelon back to him.  
  
"Can you keep a secret", he says, obviously not happy to be carrying all three watermelons, "You're parents would kill you, Max would kill me."  
  
I nod, and take the watermelon back, then follow him up the stairs. He opens the door with a flourish and I see all the people... dancing.  
  
"Where did they learn to do that?" I ask awestruck, this isn't dancing like the Mambo or merengue, it's more like the groping you see high school kids doing against walls late at night in the bad parts of town.  
  
"I don't know, kids are doing it in basements back home. Wanna try it?" Oh god, I could never do that, the moves and the...everything. This is not something my parents pictured me doing when they decided on a vacation here. The Kellerman's bubble doesn't seem to extend to this room. I shake my head a definite no, and Billy laughs and says, "come-on Baby." And we walk to the back of the room to set the watermelons down on the table.  
  
"Can you imagine doing this on the main floor, home of the family Fox- trot? Max would close the place down first." God, am I still having a conversation with him? Well, at least he's better than Neil, all wanna-try- its excluded. Actually, "the little boss man" isn't that inaccurate a description.  
  
And here comes the man in black, complete with princess girl, who appears to be hanging off him (I bet it isn't even part of the dance. She's probably just malnourished or something). Is he omnitient? He seems to be everywhere.  
  
Now they are in their element, the king and queen, Isis and Osiris of the dance floor. It isn't a show anymore, now they dance for no one but themselves.  
  
"That's my cousin, Johnny Castle" Billy says proudly, "he got me the job here."  
  
"They look great together," I say, in awe. All illusions of slumming are now banished...It's obvious that there is no poverty in this place, only dancing.  
  
"You'd think they were a couple, wouldn't you?" Billy seems happy to be telling me something I don't know, I hate people like that.  
  
"Aren't they?" They'd have to be right? They look so perfect.  
  
" Not since we were kids." I wonder how young he means by that, I wonder how old they are.  
  
" Yo cuz," Johnny Castle (the man in black) comes over from the dance floor, " what's she doing here?" It takes a second, and I realize he's talking about me, I try to think of something, but Billy comes to my so called rescue.  
  
" She's with me", he says, god I hope he doesn't mean it like that, "she came here with me."  
  
" I carried a watermelon." I say, and then realize what I said, god how dumb am I?  
  
Johnny shrugs and heads back to the dance floor, back to dancing with the princess.  
  
" I carried a watermelon?" I say to no one. Arg!  
  
After the song changes, he comes back and pulls me on to the floor.  
  
Oh, no.  
  
I probably look like a duck mistakenly taken onto the dance floor, everyone is looking at me, and no matter how much he tries to tell me how to move I'll never... OH MY GOD, HE'S TOUCHING ME!!!!!!!  
  
Well, this is a new experience. I try to move with him, and maybe I get a little better, but probably not. Still, it's nice, just try to move with the music and don't worry about anything.  
  
In short, the song ends far too soon. 


	5. Dancing With Myself

Now That I Can Dance  
  
*~*~*  
  
Chapter Four:  
  
Dancing With Myself  
  
Johnny  
  
Johnny Castle opened the door to his cabin, feeling tired and sweaty from all the dancing he had done at the "big house" and the staff hall. Normally after such a night he would feel only euphoria, pleased to be distracted from his troubles. But tonight, it was no use. He could only think of one thing, Penny.  
  
She was the only person he trusted in the world. Of course there were always others, people to surround himself with, who would keep an eye out for him and be on his side, but in the end there was only Penny. And now she was in trouble.  
  
She had told him tonight. About Robbie. Oh, he had known that they were dating, but he had no idea how serious it was. And he wasn't upset that they had been having sex, god knew he had no moral ground to stand on there, but he couldn't believe that Robbie would be so irresponsible. Having a baby would ruin Penny's career. The girl was definitely the most talented dancer that Johnny had ever worked with, even though sometimes it seemed liked her heart just wasn't into it.  
  
He mounted the steps and walked into his room, both the biggest staff cabin at Kellerman's and the loneliest. The light flicked on, burning his eyes like acid, and he began the halfhearted task of picking up the day's accumulated junk. He needed something-anything-to get his mind off his problems.  
  
No matter how much he worried about it, he knew, in the end, that Penny would be all right. Things like this always cleared up, it was just a matter of time. His distress wasn't that Penny needed an abortion, wasn't about the money or the jobs or the possibility of Max or anyone else finding out about it. His real pain was something deeply-rooted and impossible to solve or even understand, something that, as far as he could see, would stay with him for the rest of his life with no end in sight.  
  
Johnny was alone. He couldn't ever seem to forget the fact that he had no one to love. His parents sure didn't seem to care about him, the only time they had ever wrote him over the summer was to say they were worried that if he didn't come back soon he would have no chance of getting into a union. His parents just didn't seem to understand that when he was dancing nothing else mattered, he didn't have to think about being lonely, or poor, or having nowhere to go when this gig ended. Dancing, he knew, was the only thing that kept him alive. And now even that wasn't enough.  
  
Not even Penny felt how he did. He had never tried to explain it to her, and knew that he would never try. Penny danced for money and for show, but never for herself. He couldn't put a special burden on his parents, or Penny, or anyone else for not understanding. He didn't think anybody did. Or at least, he used to.  
  
That girl he had danced with tonight. He could feel that when he was moving with her, even though she was inexperienced and clumsy, that she was dancing from the heart. She had given it her all, even though she didn't have much to give.  
  
Johnny stood in the middle of his cabin for a moment, thinking of the girl in the blue stripy dress. He knew she was a guest at Kellerman's, one of Max's special guests no less. Completely off limits. To him at least, jerks like Neil were welcome to wine and dine her.  
  
Anyway, she wasn't really his type.  
  
"Damn it!" Johnny shouted as he kicked the wall. His whole world was falling apart. Penny was in trouble, his dancing days were almost over and with everything going on right now he doubted if he could handle the show at the hotel that was coming up. When things were like this there was only one thing Johnny could do.  
  
He made a clean space in the center of his room, shoving some clothes and books that had migrated onto the floor into a heap, and put an album on the record player.  
  
Music blared out of the record player. He'd always loved this song, and had even asked Max once if they could play it on the main floor, a sort of way to bring Kellerman's into the twentieth century, but he'd gotten shot down. Typical.  
  
On the floor of Tokyo Or down in London town go, go With the record selection With the mirror reflection I'm dancing with myself  
  
Johnny spun around his cabin. At night he could dance however he wanted, no formal steps, no stupid old lady partners messing him up......  
  
When there's no one else in sight In the crowded lonely night Well there's nothing to lose And there's nothing to prove I'll be dancing with myself  
  
He must have looked like an idiot to anyone who passed by, seeing him silhouetted in the windows of his cabin, a faint bass line thumping out. But he didn't care. He stopped thinking, just let the music move him, set his mind and his body free. For a few moments he didn't have to think, didn't have to worry. For a few moments, he didn't have to feel alone.  
  
If I had the chance I'd ask the world to dance And I'll be dancing with myself...  
  
*~*~*  
  
Some of you may have noticed that we have used an eighties song ("Dancing With Myself" by Billy Idol, which we do NOT own but wish we did) in a 60's fic, but let us point out that the producers weren't completely anachronism free either. And we apologize for being gone for so long, but better late than never, and you can expect a lot more of NTICD...our muse is on overdrive. :--) Oh, and congratulate us on our first original chapter...so we needed a little lyrical help... 


End file.
